


i love you and i like you

by heartunsettledsoul



Series: Forgotten Moments [14]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Canon Predictions, Missing Moments, and it's canon, oh my god they were roommates, post 2x16, post-ep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-04-06 08:45:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14053251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartunsettledsoul/pseuds/heartunsettledsoul
Summary: Jughead stays outside with the car running and Betty takes the stairs up to her room two at time, mind flickering back to all the times in middle school when she imagined packing a bag and running away.It’s real, now. And she has a home to go to now, not just the half-hearted hope that no one would notice her camping out in the Andrews’ treehouse.or, I stole a Parks & Rec quote because I have too many goddamn feelings about cohabitating co-presidential candidates Betty & Jug. and OH MY GOD THEY WERE ROOMMATES.





	i love you and i like you

She says yes to his question so quickly that Jughead forgets how often Betty Cooper can still surprise him. She says yes because she loves him unconditionally and he’s found another worthy cause and she will do anything,  _ anything  _ to support him. 

 

She says yes because they’re solid enough, happy enough that he can’t say no to her counter-request. 

 

Betty needs, more than anything, an escape from Chic and her mother. She also wants, more than anything, more time with Jughead. 

 

Two birds, one stone. 

 

Jughead doesn’t even falter, doesn’t pause to think of the implications. (FP honestly won’t care, and the two of them are more than capable of handling any recourse in the form of an angry Alice Cooper at their doorstep.) If he’s being honest, he may be more excited than Betty is—because all Betty feels at the moment is sheer relief. 

 

They spend a solid half hour in celebratory makeout before Jughead finally starts to feel the after-effect of being chained to a building for 48 hours and Betty acknowledges she needs to return to the Cooper house, if only to gather her things. Jughead snags the keys to FP’s truck and they set off across town, clutching hands across the gearshift and trying to keep the wide grins off their faces. 

 

Because they’re  _ excited,  _ dammit, but there’s also a million different things threatening to fall on their heads at any given moment. 

 

Jughead screeches up to the front drive of the Cooper home and Betty is relieved to see her mother’s car absent from the driveway. There’s no guarantee that Chic isn’t in there, waiting for her to do ...something, but she’ll take it if it means she doesn’t have to fight with Alice. He doesn’t greet her with a dead stare and creepy comment the moment she bursts through the door, which she takes as a win. Jughead stays outside with the car running and Betty takes the stairs up to her room two at time, mind flickering back to all the times in middle school when she imagined packing a bag and running away. 

 

It’s  _ real,  _ now. And she has a home to go to now, not just the half-hearted hope that no one would notice her camping out in the Andrews’ treehouse. 

 

Whirling around her bedroom, Betty throws as many things as she can touch into a duffel bag and her school backpack. Laptop, school books, her favorite pair of flats, Vixens gear, as many sweaters as she can find, her entire underwear drawer. (She briefly mourns the loss of the wig, her earliest source of confidence, but remembers that Jughead loves her for who she is, is attracted to her as she is. She’ll be alright without it, especially now that it’s tainted by conversations with Chic. Betty settles to grabbing the black lace bra and the other few surprises she’d bought at Veronica’s urging once her best friend found out that she and Jughead were sexually active.) 

 

Betty glances around at her bedroom, trying to guess if she’d forgotten anything. There’s so much she wishes she could take the time to think over, but she finds strength in the fact that her sister before her had simply packed her bags and been ready to leave with the love of her life. If she’s forgotten anything, at least she’s merely a short drive away. Before she zips the bag, Betty snatches a few photos off her vanity mirror: she and Jughead at homecoming in the fall;  Veronica kissing her on the cheek at their first Vixens performance; Polly holding her as an infant; and a group shot of her, Jughead, and Archie as kids, lips stained popsicle-red and arms slung around each other. There’s a framed Cooper family portrait that she deliberately leaves behind before shouldering her bags and racing back through the front door, the tiny voice in the corner of her brain relieved that Jughead is still there waiting for her. 

 

He kisses her deeply after she tosses her bags in the bed of the truck and buckles her seatbelt. She, in turn, holds his face in her hands and whispers, “I love you so much.” In response, Jughead merely smiles and peels out of Elm Street while Betty whispers a hushed  _ good riddance.  _

 

They’re halfway across town before Betty yelps out, “Wait!” and grabs at Jughead’s hand on the steering wheel. For the briefest of moments, his face betrays the deep-seated fear that Betty is always going to second guess choosing to be with him. He grits his teeth and prepares to make a dangerous u-turn before Betty speaks again. 

 

“We should stop at the drugstore! We’ll need posters by the dozen if we’re running for student council.” Jughead does jerk the steering wheel, but it’s to pull onto the side of the road and yank Betty into his lap so he can kiss her more thoroughly than before. 

 

.

.

.

 

For the first few days after Betty leaves, she tries to tiptoe around the Jones trailer, as if any wrong movement could upend the new arrangement. Dozens of calls from her mother go unanswered, as well as several from Veronica and Archie, but Betty prefers to spend the weekend in a cocoon of honeymooned bliss. (Alice eventually starts to call FP instead, who is firmly on Betty’s side but merely whispers, “Just give it time, Ally. Maybe she’ll come around”.) 

 

The logistics are initially a pain. The trailer has only two bedrooms, one large enough to fit a queen mattress, and one that is merely a generously-renamed closet with a single mattress. Betty’s ingrained politeness has her arguing with FP for an entire afternoon that she and Jug don’t need to take his bedroom—”Mr. Jones, please, I can’t put you out.” “Betty, for god’s sake, you can call me FP, and it  _ makes more sense _ if two people take the bigger bed.”—until Jughead rubs her shoulders and tells her it’ll be easier to convince him to switch back than to put up the fight now. 

 

For the first time in weeks—months if she’s being honest—Betty sleeps soundly. Jughead, ever the night owl, stays awake on his laptop into the wee hours of the night, keeping watch over her sleeping form beside him. They’d stayed awake discussing campaign plans until Betty’s exhaustion got the best of her and she fell asleep curled into his side. She wears one of his tshirts to sleep again and the image makes the beast in his belly purr. 

 

They spend the next afternoon sitting in bed, Betty in a cruelly short pair of sleep shorts and his shirt, brainstorming slogans and sipping coffee until Jughead finally gives in. His laptop is gently placed on the nightstand before he tosses everything else to the ground and covers her body with his own, kissing down her neck and revelling in the soft gasps that echo in his ears. They’re getting  _ really  _ good at this, if the moans from Betty are any indication, and Jughead is suddenly very grateful for the extra mattress space when they end up diagonal with Betty’s fingers twined in his hair and his mouth nipping at the creases of her hips. 

 

Betty swears to repay her stay in food and follows through tremendously: she shows up with heavy grocery bags to cook up a storm of pancakes, soups, pasta dishes, and roast chickens to show her thankfulness. 

 

Eventually, they settle into a simple routine of domesticity that gives Jughead a smile he can’t wipe off his face, makes Betty feel light as air, and has FP grinning ruefully (she makes a mean pancake, what can he say.) 

 

(The first morning after their first night as cohabitating co-presidential candidates, Jughead wakes up to find Betty frying bacon and carefully removes the frying pan from the stove before lifting her on the kitchen counter and giving her a taste of  _ just  _ how appreciative he is. His hand is firmly on her right breast and his mouth is sucking a hickey into her collarbone when FP emerges, clearing his throat loudly before pouring himself a cup of coffee and muttering something about going for a walk.) 

 

They have campaign posters drafted, rolled up, and tucked into Betty’s backpack when the pair rolls into the Riverdale High parking lot on Monday morning. It only takes one round through the teen Serpents in the lot and one through the student lounge before they have enough signatures to submit the candidate paperwork to Weatherbee, Betty smiling politely to the office secretary while Jug scowls in the background. Simple as that, they are contenders for student council president. Betty finds herself oddly embarrassed by the excitement all the Serpents show for her and Jughead—Sweet Pea claps her on the shoulder, Toni gives her a brief hug, and Betty tries to ignore the glare from Veronica across the cafeteria. 

 

It’s much easier, Betty finds, to breeze through her homework assignments when she lounges on the couch with Jughead after school instead of locking herself away in her room to avoid the domineering stares from Alice or the unsettling comments from Chic. There’s plenty of time afterward, for instance, for her to climb into Jughead’s lap and distract  _ him  _ while he struggles through a 500-word response to Act III of Macbeth. 

 

(“Fuck it,” he growls when Betty’s fingers deftly undo the button of his jeans and she kneels in front of the couch. Banquo’s death can wait until later.) 

 

A couple of mornings later, when he thinks Betty won’t hear, FP speaks lowly to Jughead, “For the love of god, next time you buy condoms, please get me some earplugs.” Jughead goes beet red, which is nothing compared to the brilliant shade of pink that runs from the tips of Betty’s ears all the way to the neckline of her lower-than-usual sweater. When Jughead finally teases her out of embarrassment, they start to make a game out of how quiet they can be in bed. Betty almost always is the one to lose, unable able to stop the pretty little moans that escape her when Jughead grips at her hipbone and works his way over her body. 

 

.

.

.

 

The whole situation lasts about a week before Alice Cooper deigns to show up at the Jones’ trailer door again. Betty is a trembling mess, clinging to Jughead’s arm like he’s her life raft. FP, to his credit, opens the door and takes the brunt of the attack. 

 

“Alice,” he pleads. “She’s begged me to let her stay. I don’t know what the hell is going on over there, but it’s making her miserable.” At the sound of her mother’s heavy sigh, Betty sends a silent prayer to the powers that be that Alice wasn’t lying and that Chic absolutely isn’t FP’s son. FP asks the question she doesn’t have the stomach to. “The boy, he’s not…?” 

 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Alice snaps. “I wasn’t  _ that  _ stupid as a teenager.” 

 

When FP raises his hands in surrender, Jughead presses a kiss to Betty’s forehead in their kitchen hiding spot. “It’s okay,” he whispers to her. “I won’t let you go anywhere.” 

 

Betty leans against his chest, breathing deeply and trying to steady her thoughts. She’s safe here, she thinks. She, at the very least, feels at  _ home  _ here. She doesn’t want any of that to go away. 

 

And Jughead won’t let it. She is firmly wrapped in his arms when he speaks again. “I’m not letting you go again, Betts. I go where you go, you’re my home.” 

 

Betty is too choked up to correct him. Because it’s  _ him  _ that is her anchor; Jughead is  _ her _ home. Whatever may come, they weather it as one. 

**Author's Note:**

> it appears I'm totally fucking powerless to the allure of writing post-eps. absolutely nobody is surprised. 
> 
> as always, please leave a comment if you read and enjoy! you can find me on tumblr under the same handle.


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